The Stress Chain
by PaleAndromache
Summary: Darcy deals with the facebook and texting fallout from Jane Foster's stress. When she took her internship she never thought she'd be dealing with government agencies or Tony Stark acting like an annoying brother. Avengers/Iron Man mentioned.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the thought of Tony annoying Darcy, but I think everyone annoys Darcy, so even that isn't very original.

Jane Foster was stressed.

Darcy knew this for two reasons. The first was because they were good friends, honestly since SHIELD had taken over their lives they were each other's only friends. The second… was a little more convoluted, and had to do with Facebook and their patron: Tony Stark.

Since Jane and Darcy had come under SHIELD and Stark Industries chain of command a different chain had formed, a rather peculiar one that dealt with stress levels. Usually Darcy was unattached to this chain, until (ironically enough) the stress made it all the way to Tony Stark, and then she became the main victim.

And by victim she meant that she had somehow become Tony's Facebook-bestie/ personal spy. How the man had time to message, post, tag, and chat so much boggled her mind, since he was supposed to be running a multi-billion dollar, international company.

However Darcy didn't have time to figure that out. She was still trying to map out the stress-chain and figure out how to not only remove herself from the end of it, but to tell Mr. Stark to pay attention in his board meetings without cutting Jane's funding.

The chain was simple, but extended:

Jane was stressed and not as productive, Agent Coulson was stressed because of this lack of production, which in turn angered Commander Fury. This frustration was passed from Fury to Agent Romanoff who, undercover as an executive assistant, was stressing out Pepper Potts. And as far as Darcy could tell a stressed Pepper meant less sex for Tony Stark.

So because of this lack of action Mr. Stark took the problem to its source (i.e. Jane) and decided to draft the person most qualified to handle her stress under his 'super-secret-direct-command.' (This was a direct quote from the greatest scientific mind of the century.)

So Darcy had suddenly found herself friended by the most brilliant (immature, harebrained) man in the world.

Thus began project "Keep Jane Calm" which grew into "Keep Pepper Happy" and "Keep Hot-spy-lady Off My Case." (Tony apparently had a thing for capital letters and hyphens.) The only project she had out right refused thus far was "Get Coulson Laid So He'll Get Off My Back."

Seriously? This man was a genius? If it weren't for the random bits of engineering jargon and references, that went so over her head they were in orbit, Darcy would have thought he was a frat boy, or an over excitable 6 year old.

_*beepbeepbeep*_

Looking down at her phone Darcy winced.

_One message from AEStark_.

If this was another ploy at getting her to get Jane to fake an emergency so he could leave a board meeting she was going to call Pepper personally and rat him out.

_Tell J. I've got a power source coming her way_.

Then again, every once and a while, Darcy could appreciate the man...

_Also make sure if you run off to unicorn-magic-fairy-land tell Fury first so he doesn't take it out on me…and take me with you? Finance meetings suck : (_

...and other times he was a big child who sexually harassed his CEO, purposefully irritated Fury, disrespected Coulson, and mocked the credibility of the events which Darcy had lived through.

Scrolling through her contacts and sending off a quick text Darcy chuckled maliciously, Pepper was going to kick his ass.

Whistling blithely to herself, Darcy set off to find Jane. The poor woman was probably trying to fend off (yet another) love-struck scientist, and Darcy wasn't about to let someone cozy into her buddy Thor's territory.

A/N: I do love Tony, desperately actually. I just felt that Darcy and he would have an interest brother/sister relationship if ever let loose on each other. (She is btw completely oblivious that when he sexually harasses Pepper its totally mutual.) I was toying with the thought of giving a few of the more idiotic and inane conversations, but decided to just go with this for now…


End file.
